


Public Displays of Affection

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Established Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Kissing, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Public Display of Affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: It's not a good day when AIM and Hydra come for them at the same time... Things get away from them in the heat of the moment.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 28
Kudos: 231
Collections: 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Holiday Exchange





	Public Displays of Affection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Westernwood11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Westernwood11/gifts).



When he woke his ears were ringing and the first thing he heard was: "Cap, Iron Man is down. I repeat, Iron Man is down."

Disoriented as he was, it took him a moment to place the voice.

Noh-Varr. Protector. Their Kree team mate.

"I'm not," he started to say, but realized his voice sounded in the HUD — but nothing reacted. The HUD was dead apart from the emergency status readings. The armor was part of him now, integrated into his biology.

"Is he okay?" 

That was Steve — Steve's beloved voice, laced with understated worry. Nothing about it was noticeably different from _before_ and that only drove home something that Carol and others had been joking about for the last few weeks... Steve had always been worried like this — for Tony and Iron Man. Tony had always felt like this for Cap — from moment they'd pulled them from the ice. They'd been dancing around each other from the very beginning. Tony had known his own awed feelings but perhaps never dared think there was anything more going on... But here they were. 

Together.

In love.

After everything.

"Someone tell me Tony is okay," Steve repeated.

"Can't see him, Captain." 

Storm. 

"No response," Jessica Drew confirmed calmly. "He's a big boy."

"He's also prone to take risks," Steve huffed.

"Hello," Tony said indignantly.

But Clint got to say it first: "Who isn't on this job?"

"Thank you," he said into the silence. Because _Steve_ couldn't exactly claim to not take risks. And Tony would tell him so the moment he got communications back up and running...

Correction. _The armor_ up and running — which essentially meant getting _himself_ back on his feet.

Tony blinked the dizziness away and tried to take stock of his situation. 

Every bone in his body hurt. And with the armor, Extremis, the RT — it _shouldn't_. He tried to move but nothing happened.

The armor was dead. The RT was running, busy with keeping his bodily functions going.

"He caught the missile before it could take down the helicarrier," Vision's level voice explained. "He hasn't surfaced since the explosion."

A long silence followed. 

Tony tried to open all channels to let his team know he was fine — pieces fell back into place, the ringing in his ears, the headache, dizziness, aching bones: The explosion had downed him.

"Someone find him. Let me know the second you catch sight of him," Steve said. He didn't sound out of breath but Tony could tell he was running.

"I'm fine," he said loudly, but again the armor didn't transfer the message. In fact for the first time since he'd fallen a message flashed up: "All channels jammed." 

"Great," he said, knowing the only one who could hear him was himself.

And he couldn't move.

Close-by the Earth shifted. Steps. Rocks sliding down.

The HUD was still out. 

He said nothing, waited. 

He had a bad feeling about this.

Then someone said from very close to the armor. 

"You won't be able to move, Mr. Stark. Mr. Stark?"

He strained himself a little to get the HUD working, but the visual as distorted. He recognized a the uniforms though. Conic hats that without color look like oversized buckets gave away AIM just as surely as their signature yellow would have. 

"He's out. The explosion has down him as planned."

Someone else leaned over the armor to look at the mask and Tony got good look of the face — and the Hydra insignia. 

He sighed. Of course, he wasn't going to tell them he was awake and yet unable to fight back. It was never good when AIM and HYDRA remembered their common roots and moved against them as one. And the way this looked they had planned for this from the start.

Quickly, he took another shot at rebooting his armor. The HUD flickered and went dark again.

Uh-huh.

"We need to get them into the stasis field before he wakes or his armor reboots enough to start any of the security measures he protects himself with."

"Shouldn't we try to get him out of the armor?" 

"The armor's part of him now. We'd have to kill him."

"Isn't that the point."

"Not right away. Mr. Stark still has his uses."

"Aha," Tony said inside the armor, unamused but careful he couldn't be heard outside. "What are you planning League of Evil Science Nerds? Tell me all my uses, please. Then I can just lie here and plan how to take you down faster."

The HUD flickered back to life, dimmed, flickered, flared. Something was jamming his systems and so far he couldn't make the systems work long enough to figure it out. An attempt at starting a system scan sent pain through him. He groaned.

Something was trying to take control — a virus?

A familiar voice broke through the haze.

"Tony," Steve called into his communicator, sounding worried in Tony's ears. "Tony respond. Come on, shellhead, tell me you're fine."

"I'd like to, Steve," Tony told the inside of the armor, watching as the flickering HUD told him: REBOOT IN PROGRESS. 

The Hydra goons had set about to move the armor.

Someone above him said: "The Hulk's down. Spider-Woman was apprehended."

A strange hiss to the voice told Tony something he had already suspected. When the HUD let him take a look at the people above him, he recognized Copperhead — beside him a woman in another strange serpentine costume that Tony had never seen before. Had Madame Hydra called in her old snake palls or was there even more villainous cooperation going on?

If Red Hulk was down that didn't bode well. 

He heard Storm cry out in the channel. 

Then a crash.

"Vision, get to Strom now!" Steve ordered. 

He sounded out of breath this time.

"Time to take down the good Captain," Copperhead said.

"if you please," one of the female AIM agents said and leaned over Tony again. "We're not interested in the super soldier. Such a boring concept. Your Madame Hydra has plans for him though."

"To slit his throat on live TV, yes."

A Hydra soldier was the on giving that obnoxious answer. 

Tony gritted his teeth even hearing that tone implying the former Viper was planning to kill Steve.

It wasn't _unexpected_ per se.

Someone usually wanted to make an example of one Avenger or another — if not all of them — and Cap and Hydra went way back that usually they got more dramatic than just wanting to kill him. Tony could only hope Steve was getting out of it before anyone could decide today was the day they had learned something and actually get lucky. 

Or... Tony needed to make sure _he_ finally got the armor back online, got able to _send_ messages again instead of only receiving and _warn_ Steve.

"Calm down," he thought. "Nothing has changed just because you and Steve are a couple. Steve's still Steve and he can take Hydra singlehandedly any day of the week."

He knew it to be true.

He also knew how close they'd come to lose Steve forever through the Red Skulls machinations and Tony's mistakes and wrong choices.

"Concentrate," he whispered. "You're Tony Stark and this is fucking annoying. Whatever they did with their missile, undo it. The Avengers need you to up your game."

He had so much as whispered when three things happened at once. The HUD sprang up, his internal systems informing him of a virus that was interfering with armor operations and communications, with the sudden return of input he realized he was being hoisted towards a machine — obviously designed to hold him in the virus induced stasis — and suddenly someone screamed in his ear.

He was sure it was Storm.

Then a shout followed — Protector? — "Cap! Look out!"

There was no response at all from Steve.

The Storm said with a broken voice: "He's down! Hydra has him."

Tony saw red — what was left of Extremis reared up, causing a migraine of epic proportions, but his arm finally reacted.

He managed to get one repulsor blast off before the AIM scientists around him had even realized he was back online.

"He's up!" the woman who seemed in charge shouted.

"No kidding," he said out loud — finally able to broadcast his voice to the room.

He was up and out of the transport before the systems had even fully purged the virus — leaving the AIM crew with an exploding engine after another well aimed repulsor blast.

He shot up to the sky in an arc — taking in all information at once as it flooded in. He could see Strom gathering herself to fight off the squad that had managed to ground her, saw another AIM transport leaving the scene — and saw Madam Hydra in the circle of Hydra followers, Serpent Society members close-by.

Inside the helmet the HUD flashed: "Captain America."

But Tony had already spotted Steve — forced to his knees, arms bound on his back, neck bent forward and the muzzle of a combat rifle at his temple.

Someone down there was monologuing. Surely.

AIM was broadcasting a warning too.

Yellow suits were active on the field.

Tony didn't care.

All he cared about was Steve and the gun pointed at his head.

He swooped in, knocking the gun away before the trigger could be pulled and covered Steve with his body. Steve blinked up at him, surprised. "Shellhead... Look out!"

He whirled around to block the grenade thrown their way and realized too late that it hadn't been thrown from among the green ranks.

The migraine flared, he screamed. 

He could feel the armor lose cohesion before it started dripping off his body. He was momentarily glad for the fact that he had dressed in actual _clothes_ this morning and not jut used the nano-machines to form a nice business suit over his skin. It would all have bled away with the magnetic pulse taking out the repulsor tech systems again.

"Tony!" 

Steve was on his feet. Tony heard the snapping of the metal cuffs that until now had held his wrists on his back. Then he was right beside Tony, his shield was back in his hands and he was the one shielding him from the next onslaught.

"Cover us!" he ordered and Tony thought for a moment Steve was talking to him, but there was a huge, very red Hulk suddenly stomping all over Hydra people. 

"Tony?" 

Steve's hands settled on his shoulders and he made Tony look up.

"Not my day," he admitted and tried to smile.

The armor hummed. "VIRUS PURGED." 

"Cool," he whispered. 

"I thought you were seriously hurt," Steve started.

"I thought they were going to execute you on live television." _Again_ , he added silently.

Steve gripped his chin to make him look up, meet his eyes: "Are you okay?"

The armor was ready to reform around him, but Steve's eyes were so blue, there was blood on his cheek... Tony was just glad he was alive, and so close and...

It wasn't clear to him later who initiated the kiss. It might have been him. Steve claimed it was all on him. _That_ Tony doubted — but caught up in the moment — friends bringing down literal storms down on their enemies just feet away — the kiss deepened and they clung to each other.

"I'm glad you're safe," Steve whispered and hugged him tighter.

A missile flew over their heads.

"I'm glad you're glad," Tony whispered back and patted his shoulder, "but we're not safe at all standing here. Let's end this. Go home and continue this..."

"Fair point." Steve pulled away, watched him critically until Tony had commanded the armor to form again, encasing him head to toe to prove he was combat read. Accepting the proof, Steve nodded.

"Avengers?" he asked into the communicator, smiling briefly at Tony.

"We're assembled," Hawkeye quipped, "where are you?"

* * *

Hydra had failed to make the execution of Captain America shock the world on love television.

The news were full with different footage. _Captain America and Iron Man? Love spell?_ read one of the captions while the footage of their kiss played. The Avengers had gathered around the kitchen table, cartons of Thai food stacked between them. 

"Cap started it," Carol said after she rewatched it for the seventh time or so. 

"I did," Steve said matter-of-factly.

"I don't know," Tony disagreed. 

"Stark leaned in," Jessica said backing him up.

"I did," Tony said and nodded. "0.745 seconds before you did. I have internal recordings."

"Of everything we do together?" 

Tony wriggled his eyebrows. "Of everything I do."

"Or everyone who does..." 

Jessica and Carol smacked Clint at the same time.

Steve gave him a lopsided smile. "Sorry. This wasn't planned..."

"We didn't plan to reveal it at all," Tony pointed out. "Heat of the moment. We can try to spin it..."

"I'm more surprised anyone is surprised," Carol complained. 

"No spin," Steve disagreed. "Heat of the moment. I feel better now that it's out."

"Can the world take a gay Captain America?" a moderator shouted into the camera. "Has he been replaced by a Skrull again?"

It was Tony's turn to give him a lopsided grin. "Sure about that?"

Steve kissed him right on the lips and then pulled him into a hug. "I'm just glad you're fine."

Tony whispered: "I love you too." And he was glad that the team was to engrossed in enjoying their dinner and making snarky remarks about the media coverage of their public kiss to notice to tease them fort the affectionate display.


End file.
